For one wild moment I was tempted to tell her the whole truth about us, just to see how she would react.
“Barnett is a very special person,” I said instead. And as I parroted this American cliché my palate sensed a taste of parody, and for a moment I felt a pang of guilt. Mrs. Davis was good to my sister, what right did I have to mock her? I didn’t want to mock her, not even secretly to myself.
As far as I could judge, it seemed that the version Mrs. Davis had heard about the rape was similar to the one that my father-in-law and mother-in-law had heard from me. But unlike in our family, in the little white house on the prairie, the horror was simply registered as a given: a foal was born, the corn grew, the winter was late, one of our pilgrims went out of his mind in Jerusalem, and the wife he brought home with him was a victim of rape.
Because it was clear to me at this stage that not only her mother-in-law but everyone in the room knew everything about Barnett’s hospitalization and also something about my sister’s ordeal. The knowledge lay there in the room like the “Israeli salad’ Elisheva had prepared in our honor, and the next day I received an explanation when we went for a walk in the park.
Elisheva, of course, hadn’t divulged the details of the rape to anyone, but everyone in the room knew that she had been “sexually molested,” and the whole congregation had heard about the breakdown of her family and the miraculous manner in which the Lord had brought about her meeting with the man intended for her.
“Imagine that somebody saves your life,” my sister explained, “not only saves your life but really saves you, your soul. Wouldn’t you want people to know about him and what he did for you? Think how ungrateful it would be to hide it. Our Lord Jesus raised me from the depths. Even if I lived for a thousand years, a million years, it wouldn’t be enough to thank him. What kind of a person would try to hide such a miracle?”
Neither at that moment, nor at any subsequent moment was I tempted to enter into a theological debate with my sister and to ask her who had plunged her into the depths in the first place. Her face was radiant with a shy confidence, and I thought that “our Lord Jesus” as she called him had given her what no psychologist had been able to give her. I couldn’t fail to be impressed by his power.
In a little village somewhere on the prairie lived a modest old couple whose fame had spread far and wide. They were known as “The teachers of love,” and heartsick people came to them from the ends of the land to be taught the secret of the healing powers of love.
Many years ago the old man brought his wife to the village. He was very sick. She was wounded. Even the woolly sheep in the pen could sense her terrible pain, and whenever she stroked them they would bleat sadly under her hand.
But the man and his wife did not despair or sink into self-pity. Love is a balm that works slowly, and with endless patience they continued to brew their balm, until its effect became evident in them both. Their eyes grew bright. Their complexions grew fresh. The woman’s figure grew shapely. Love covers a multitude of sins. And love covered all and ransomed every wound. And it shed its grace on their beautiful daughter, and on their neighbors, and on every living thing around them, and all their eyes brightened. Broken-winged songbirds began to sing again. Blind dogs regained their sight and frolicked in the meadows. A vicious thief who came to steal their cattle went to work as an orderly in the hospital.
“Love is a daily labor,” the old woman instructs the lost youth who finds his way to their door. At the beginning of summer the youth ran away from home; in the course of his wanderings he heard about the “teachers of love,” and one morning he simply knocked at their door.
“We do our daily work,” the old woman said to him, “and the Lord performs his labor of love. As he did for me. Sit here, at my feet, next to the stove, and I’ll tell you my story. You’re old enough to hear it.”
Far, far away in a little village, in a village where all the people are radiant, a magical old man and woman lived in happiness and love. Perhaps they are still living there to this day, and in this happiness our story concludes.
Nothing was concluded. What was concluded? How could it possibly end like this? The voice was the voice of Alice, coming to seduce me into this happy final solution. But it was as false and deceitful as usual, and my sister, even if she lived to be a hundred, would never say a sentence like: “Sit at my feet and I’ll tell you my story.”
The story wasn’t over and done with, and even as the voice of the chronic enthusiast tried to seduce me into locking it up like this, I knew that it would go on twisting and turning in my guts. Not for a moment did I forget the mission on which I had come — a slithering snake, a poisonous Not-man was threatening to invade the walls — and even then I doubted the power of love to seal them.
My sister would go on living long after her fair hair went completely white. Amen. And I, the dark sister, whose duty is was to tell her — this time I would know how to protect her. I would protect her so that she lived a long and happy life and so that in her old age people would come from the ends of the earth to witness the miracle of the resurrection she deserved.
I will not allow my sister to be hurt again. I will not allow it — I swear. I am no longer what I was, I am not a child, I am not a fool, I have strength, and the past will not repeat itself. There will be no more harm done.
I repeated these things to myself. And even as I repeated them, my heart sickened and rejected the foreign transplant of the happy end.
•
But once again I’m losing the thread and getting ahead of myself. Because at this stage nothing had yet been explained to me — my marveling eyes saw only happiness — and at this stage it was still evening in the little white house: snatches of small talk sail through the air, someone puts on a CD of soul music. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Oded putting on his coat and going outside to talk on his cell phone. Elisheva, who had left the room to put her daughter to bed, came back and said that the child was asking for her aunt to come and kiss her good night.
Sarah’s room was in the attic, and when I came in a ginger head rose behind a mauve net canopy, and a lively voice inquired: “So what are our plans for tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow you’re going to school, after that you have athletic club, and now we’re going to sleep,” my sister replied and bent down to tuck in the blanket.
“I know, but what about after that?”
“We’ll see.”
“Will we have time to play?” The little face turned toward me and my heart contracted at the sight of its perfect innocence. “I know a game that you and Mommy used to play. Mommy taught it to me. You tie a scarf around your eyes and then you throw a ball and try to catch it.” She seemed about to get up and demonstrate, and Elisheva gently pushed her back. “Goodnight, goodnight now.”
“I know who taught you to play that game,” said Sarah after we kissed her and turned to leave the room. The experienced mothers took no notice, but when we were at the door, a little voice full of satisfaction said: “I really do know. He was an acrobat, that’s what he was. And you were both little and you were dressed like princesses.”
— 4 -
After all these experiences, all this emotion, isn’t it time for me to give myself and others a bit of a rest? Time to slow down and take a breath?
I could, for example, turn my gaze from people and their distraught passions and follies to the splendors of nature. I could rest my eyes on the natural miracle of the leaves, and their famous glories.